Winter Workshops In The Scottish Highlands And On Mull

The house is silent, I'm alone again, and the wind is battering the rain against my windows once more. Just like it was when I left for the Highlands, almost a month ago. I've barely had time to soak up the events of the last four weeks, but I'm sure it'll start to sink in over time, and while most of it is fresh in my head, I thought I ought to write it down, for this blog.

As usual, early in February I packed my bags and headed north, to the Scottish Highlands. Like last year, the weather that greeted me on arrival was cold, and wintery, but unlike last year, it remained so, and my clients all enjoyed what I would consider to be winter conditions. Last year by the middle of my stay, the temperature was a ridiculous 17 degrees Celcius, and the "most wanted" subject for my workshops, the crested tit, was nowhere to be seen.

Not a problem this year, and they would prove to be perhaps the stars of the show for the winter workshops. Normally I have availability for these workshops right up to the time I leave, but this season, I was fully booked before the beginning of December, which was great for me. The only concern would be the ptarmigan, as the windy conditions always make trips up the mountain pointless - if it's windy, the ptarmigan are impossible to approach, not to mention the difficulty of making the hike up there in the first place.

After arriving and settling in at Andy and Lyndsey's house, I spent a day with Andy initially, at the crested tit site, and then helped him with a project the following day at the squirrels, before accompanying one of his clients to the crested tit site again. And after last year's no-show over there, to see these charismatic birds buzzing around the feeders constantly was the most wonderful of sights.

Made even better by the snow falling all around.

I won't go into all the details of how the workshops panned out, but will simply say that everyone got almost everything they hoped for. As mentioned earlier, the gusty conditions prevented us from finding the ptarmigan until the workshops later in my stay, when the weather finally calmed down, but the red squirrels, red deer, red grouse, crested tits, snow buntings and mountain hares all put in an appearance for my clients.

I've selected a few images from the sessions for the blog...

The trip up for the ptarmigan was so worth waiting for. It was a bit of a hike up, and like last year, was a joint effort with Andy and his client leading the way. When they left us to it, favouring a session back down the mountain with the snow buntings, we reapproached the group of ptarmigan, and got some lovely stuff of them. Any session with these birds is memorable, and I always treasure the time with them.

Readers of this blog will recall previous trips to the Highlands resulting in me seeing some fantastic wildfowl around the harbours. Sadly in recent years, due to essential dredging of these busy fishing areas, the birds haven't been seen, until this winter, when we watched some more long-tailed ducks fishing in the sheltered waters.

An unexpected treat for my clients that day.

While most of my time in the Highlands had been set aside for workshops, I did have a couple of days free, and I was more than happy to spend the time with Lyndsey, who spent one of the days showing me round a glen near where her grandparents live, which is definitely one of the most picturesque areas I've ever been fortunate enough to see.

Snow-capped mountains, waterfalls, lochs and small islands, with red deer around to add to the magic. The weather might have been a little challenging at times, but it made it all the more incredible.

And a place I returned to with my clients the following week, who were also as spellbound by it all as I was.

At the end of the month, I had to leave Andy and Lyndsey, which is always difficult, as I love spending time with them. But rather than be heading home, I was driving south and west, to the Isle Of Mull for a week, most of which would be spent running a bespoke workshop looking for otters.

The start of the visit was pretty grim in terms of the weather. Howling winds and horizontal snow, sleet, hail and rain. But it didn't take me long to locate the subject for the workshop.

And one encounter would prove to be very special indeed. Roll the clocks back to several years ago, when I was on Mull with my Dad, but also spending time with Ian and his family. They'd just arrived for a week, after we'd already been there for one already. We had CB radios, and were constantly chatting to one another when I heard Ian telling me he'd got an otter, with a lobster. I remember the moment clear as day, even now, after all these years. I was watching some goosanders, and I decided not to go round to join him, for fear of spooking the otter, and costing him the shots. I waited, and Ian bagged some incredible shots that day.

This time I was alone, and watching a mother and almost grown-up cub out fishing in the loch. There was some splashing, what appeared to be a brief spat out in the water, and then one otter started to head to the shore, at speed. I wasn't sure of what it had caught, but as the rain had finally stopped, I thought I'd go and get into position to see it. Scrambling down the lochside into a pile of slimey seaweed, I set the camera up and tracked the otter as she broke through the waves.

A lobster.

She actually brought it ashore closer to me than I'd expected, favouring the shingle shore instead of the rocks where I thought she'd come out. I grabbed some shots as she carried the prize up the beach, finally dropping it not far from the road. She briefly sniffed the lobster, before tucking in... facing away from me.

I have to admit, despite nailing the shots of her bringing it ashore, I was gutted not to be seeing the eating. Until a car went by, and she paused, moving away from her meal, before going back, and this time choosing to eat it, facing me.

She spent almost a quarter of an hour dining on the lobster, right in front of me, but never being aware of my presence. Her cub swam past midway through the meal, squeaking away, but she ignored him, focusing on her fine cuisine instead.

After finishing, she then found a grassy spot further down the loch to come out and groom on, and after going back into the water briefly again, she spent more time grooming her fur beside a small estuary. This did lead to one moment of frustration for me, when at the precise moment she climbed out of the water, a pair of sheep decided to move between the otter and me, and start nibbling the grass. I couldn't see anything!

Thankfully they moved on, and I could get some final images of the otter before she headed upstream and away for a well deserved sleep.

I had a couple of regrets from the encounter. Firstly it arrived just hours before the workshop began, and it would have been wonderful for my client to have shared the experience, and secondly that Andy wasn't alongside me, as he's keen to capture such a sight for his upcoming book on otters.

While the workshop didn't see such an incredible encounter, we did get to see several otters, capturing images of them fishing, eating and grooming, as well as a ridiculously close encounter on the final morning, when a mother and cub scrambled over the rocks to come within fifteen feet of where we were attempting to hide. Magical stuff and left both of us smiling for hours.

The end of the trip was supposed to see me returning home, before welcoming Lyndsey to my place for a change, when she was collecting Andy's new car from the dealership where my brother works. But the sad demise of Flybe saw me diverting to pick her up from Glasgow. Made for a fun final few days at the end of a busy period, back on home turf, where Lyndsey got to enjoy some of the wildlife I perhaps take for granted, such as the great-crested grebes, and avocets at Upton Warren.

I'll soon be putting up details of workshops in the Highlands for 2021, on my website, so if you're interested in joining me for a few days, please drop me an email. Same for a bespoke tour on Mull - I'm always happy to show people around the island!